Can I be the first to say that I thought this was Stuckey's best overall game of the year. He scored early, taking all good shots. Set people up in the second half, zipping passes behind the defense to backdoor cutters, hit CV for a corner three on a drive and dish (one that looked like he had no intention of scoring), hit Ben Wallace for a couple wide open dunks on pick and rolls.

I did think his defense was lacking a bit and he did have a couple turnovers on charges, but I think he played the point as well as we've seen him play it.

Kuester nearly blew this game by putting Atkins in to finish the game. I didn't understand that at all. If Gordon can't go, play the traditional lineup. Don't sabotage your team by putting yourself at an offensive and defensive disadvantage.

Milwaukee went on a bit of a run on sloppy Piston play to force the Pistons to make free throws to seal the win.

Atkins had a better game, hitting some jumpers, but he still gives up all too easy buckets. Bynum and Gordon are still nursing injured ankles, so playing somebody makes sense. Just wish it was not Atkins.

Ben Wallace was amazing in this one, holding Bogut to nothing. Not a point or rebound in the 1st half for Bogut. But JMAX started right along side Ben Wallace, and surely helped that good D. And Ben W. had a double double.

Detroit now leads the league in 2nd chance points - and a whole lot of that is from the last 5 games. Great trend to see.

Villanueva played with a mask on. Hit some shots, fouled a lot. Will the Pistons ever go back to him starting though considering how well JMAX and Ben as a pair do rebounding and offensive boards in particular? CV and Ben G. off the bench sounds pretty good for bench scoring punch.

JJ continues to impress, getting more accurate on inside shots. Last game, we saw him do a couple of nifty drives to the basket. Tonight, we saw him make a clutch outside shot late. A few games ago we saw him make 4 triples in one game.

Delfino for them scored 15 in the first half. Daye played him a lot in the 2nd half where he did not score. (Actually, most of the 4th quarter.) I was pleased to see Daye stay in there for some solid 2nd half minutes. We were way ahead so I guess the coach decided to let the guy stay out there. It worked out well enough though Milwaukee got way too close before it was over.

We did play some small ball, but for the most part, either Daye or JJ was out there in this one.

No Summers. Quite predictably no Wilcox after he had a fine game last game. Prince is trying to come back within a week. No further update on Rip though last we heard it looked like both Rip and Prince were on the same track as far as returning.

Ben Gordon had a good night shooting. Stuckey scored inside and out. Bynum did not do much except make several free throws. In all, we got to the line plenty and got lots of paint points.

Our assists were very high in this one. Atkins did set a nice tone on that with some good passes early. Nine assists for Stuckey.

Ben W. had 4 dunks in the first half. Good job of keeping involed in the O.

Kwame did nothing all that bad. Did nothing much at all.

Without checking the boxscore, I'd say no Piston got overplayed. We are in the midst of a lot of home games, along with an easy schedule void of back to backs. At this rate, when Rip and Tay get back, we will be a healthy rested team set to make a strong run.

The question is: What will Kuester do with all the depth. Use it? Or sit a bunch of players while overplaying others. Time will tell.

Playing .500 ball. Very interesting team. They should make the playoffs in the weak East.

Around their horn:

PG--Jennings (20) played like a rookie and he will learn to be a great point guard. Ridnour (28) and is earning a deserved 6.5M. Hey JD, look at a true PG. The best player on the court (at positional level) and this includes both sides.

SG--Redd ( 30-$17M)) was out (lucky, lucky, lucky) and Bell (30) is no substitute offensively; although his strength from the book, is defense and Redd will never go there.

#3--Hakim Warrick (27/6-9/3M) continues to impress. Very smooth, doesn't rattle and can play the full court. Nice jump shot and can hit that all important 12 ft shot. Very active and stays around the action. This fellow replaced CV, which is of itself, an interesting turn. He looks to be not the flaky type...I'll explain this later.

#4--Illyasova (22) and I put him here because I see his mirror image from Detroit (Jerebko). It goes without saying, they are European products. Both are solid 6-10 and understand how the demand of family depends upon them in (honestly) working the fields. Nice touch around the basket and has a complete understanding that an outside comfort (perimeter) ability equals out the weather patterns... so that the crop can be harvested. Good fine for the Bucks.

#5--Bogut (25) and is making an honest 10M. Let us remember, he was #1 of #1 ( Milwaukee) in the year 2005. His value depends: he is not a leaper, not quick (this would bother me), beads of sweat would swell around his brow if facing the basket outside the tiny circle, but he owns his mind-set territory. Ben Wallace should have been his great teacher tonight. More than that, he needs an understanding influence. All things come easy for the psych of the Skiles types: if it's not there in the vernacular, then forget-it. The opposite from our end (Q) would suggest that it becomes one great chain of being. Most organizations do not understand the role of mentorship within a particular system of two-way solutions: encouragement of possibilities beginning from doubts.

It's late but I got home, stayed up and watched most of the first half, part of the third and all of the 4th. At one point this looked like a 2007 Piston team where they maintained a 6 to 13 pt lead no matter what kind of run the Bucks threw at them. In fact the Bucks longest run was 10-2 in the third.

Any way the first half was a thing of beauty assist wise as there plenty of them being dished out from everybody. (28 total for the game with the last coming at the 4 minute mark of the 4th).

Big Ben's energy returned after taking Wednesday night off and was drunken fool tonight and you hear him cursing a lot too with the S word...

JJ and Stuckey were instrumental in getting the Pistons off to a good start with Big Ben controlling things on the defensive end. I thought Chuckie had his best game as a Piston since 2003, but still in 18 mins of play he only had 1 assist and never went to the FT line where as the other 3 guards were 16-19 from the FT line.

Bengo found his shot again but did not play in crunch time so not sure if he re tweaked the ankle or not. Bynum looked terrible out there those last 3-4 minutes and looked kind of winded as he never really found his shot tonight. He had a couple TO's and missed a couple FT's down the stretch.

CV returned but looked uncomfortable out there with the mask, getting what appeared to be 3 fouls in 5 minute span of the second qtr.

Overall good game until the end when a 17 point lead with a little under 6 mins shrunk very fast and it was nervous time at the Palace with Pistons letting it get to close to comfort before making enough FT's to seal it.

Can I be the first to say that I thought this was Stuckey's best overall game of the year. He scored early, taking all good shots. Set people up in the second half, zipping passes behind the defense to backdoor cutters, hit CV for a corner three on a drive and dish (one that looked like he had no intention of scoring), hit Ben Wallace for a couple wide open dunks on pick and rolls.

I did think his defense was lacking a bit and he did have a couple turnovers on charges, but I think he played the point as well as we've seen him play it.

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He did look good tonight, but still tried his usual "freight train" runnover charges...

If he plays like this everygame there is hope for him yet. He needs to review the tapes tomorrow and practice these moves for future games

He did look good tonight, but still tried his usual "freight train" runnover charges...

If he plays like this everygame there is hope for him yet. He needs to review the tapes tomorrow and practice these moves for future games

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Players who attack the lane and seek contact are GUARANTEED a few "freight train" charges. No player who relentlessly attacks the rim is going to avoid them completely. Plus they are mistakes of aggression that stop the play. Not careless passes/dribbling like Daye/Bynum that lead to runouts going the other way. I'll live with those any day.

I don't see how anyone could not be impressed with Rodney tonight. He didn't take a bad shot all night, shot 64%, created uncontested dunks/layups for teammates time after time, making the pass the lead to the assist, and made some hustle plays as well. He would have had 10 dimes if it weren't for Ben blowing that first dunk attempt. That is the perfect type of game from our "semi" PG. People expecting more are unrealistic. If he could bring anything close to that on most nights, we would be a very good team.

As for the rest of the team... I am dreading the day Tayshaun is back in the lineup. I'm sorry, but I will take Jonas any day. We know he can hustle and D up. He's shown flashes of the deep jumpshot and little hookshots. Now he's showing some ball-handling and passing ability. A definite keeper.

Big Ben... what's there to say. Love seeing him getting so hyped up on those dunks. He's just a beast.

I am concerned about Will B though. If he's not healthy he needs to adapt to that, and play more of a secondary roll on offense.

Can I be the first to say that I thought this was Stuckey's best overall game of the year. He scored early, taking all good shots. Set people up in the second half, zipping passes behind the defense to backdoor cutters, hit CV for a corner three on a drive and dish (one that looked like he had no intention of scoring), hit Ben Wallace for a couple wide open dunks on pick and rolls.

I did think his defense was lacking a bit and he did have a couple turnovers on charges, but I think he played the point as well as we've seen him play it.

I don't see how anyone could not be impressed with Rodney tonight. He didn't take a bad shot all night, shot 64%, created uncontested dunks/layups for teammates time after time, making the pass the lead to the assist, and made some hustle plays as well. He would have had 10 dimes if it weren't for Ben blowing that first dunk attempt. That is the perfect type of game from our "semi" PG. People expecting more are unrealistic. If he could bring anything close to that on most nights, we would be a very good team.

As for the rest of the team... I am dreading the day Tayshaun is back in the lineup. I'm sorry, but I will take Jonas any day. We know he can hustle and D up. He's shown flashes of the deep jumpshot and little hookshots. Now he's showing some ball-handling and passing ability. A definite keeper.

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JJ just keeps getting better and better, I really wish he'd get more run at PF, I would really like to see him starting there when Tay returns, I think he can really be a solid starting SF/PF in this league.

Big Ben... what's there to say. Love seeing him getting so hyped up on those dunks. He's just a beast.

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I'm looking at Ben like Grant Hill right now, ironically the injuries added a few years to their NBA career's. The injuries kept both off the court and saved their bodies and they both made 100% recoveries.

I am concerned about Will B though. If he's not healthy he needs to adapt to that, and play more of a secondary roll on offense.

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Last night he did, not many points but he did get 7asts, he ran the point well deferring to STuckey and Gordon for the most part, take away the last 4mins of the game and he had a solid game last night.

It doesn't matter if he was playing the 1, the 2, or the 7. Stuckey actually made some good decisions and good passes last night.

The guy frustrates the heck out of me when he puts his head down and gets into the "I'm going to shoot no matter what mode". But, last night, I thought he made some nice progress, irregardless of the position he was playing.

One, yes, Stuckey did well. But his minutes are down lately (cause we are playing every other day, not back to backs.) He is playing well rested. Once the minutes pile up again - you will see no actual change.

Some called this Stuckey's best game. Nope. We have seen awesome games from Stuckey in the past, when he was well rested.

On JJ being better than Tay. Lets see how JJ does after many years of playing into the playoffs, getting overplayed on a regular basis. JJ has seen pretty much optimal minutes this season. Plenty of minutes to get into the flow, certainly never too many minutes. (One forty minute game.)

Going forward, if eveyone gets healthy, there should never be another excuse for Kuester to overplay anyone - and thus retriggering the whole injury cycle once more.

It doesn't matter if he was playing the 1, the 2, or the 7. Stuckey actually made some good decisions and good passes last night.

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It shouldn't matter, but for him it does. When you take the pressure of running the offense off of his shoulders, he plays fine, he simply plays HIS game, HIS game will get you around 20 points and no less than 5 asts. For some reason when you make him bring the ball up court and make him responsible for getting the team into their sets, his brain seems to freeze up, now he's thinking-rather than playing, and he's thinking with a frozen brain. Oh it matters, it matters BIG TIME!!!

I think Stuckey's in a no-win situation with a lot of folks on this board. If you watched the game last night and thought he was a problem or mixed bag, you're never going to be happy with his play. He shot a decent percentage, had 9 assists, and put the team in a position to win.

They could have coasted to an easy victory had Bynum not played as poorly. I know he's injured, but when he's that ineffective, he shouldn't be playing as minutes as he did last night.

Me too, Mrs Dre is taking me out to celebrate my double~nickel birthday tonight, so lets hope for a Piston victory and I will run the DVR 4th qtr back prior to midnight to see if today was a good day (quoting Ice Cube there)

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I actually did it. Watched the game without knowing the outcome. I have to admit that if the 1st Q went bad then I would have looked at the score but they started out pretty strong.

With the way Ben Wallace is playing he makes everyone else so much better on D. In a game like that I also realize that we really do have a lot of offensive options even w/o Tay and Rip. Pistons just did not look like a 7-12 team that game.

On JJ being better than Tay. Lets see how JJ does after many years of playing into the playoffs, getting overplayed on a regular basis.

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But that doesn't really matter to us unless we're talking about who is the better player over their career.

We're just looking at it game to game, and JJ has brought a lot more hustly, energy and inside scoring than Tay has in recent years. Maybe it is because Tay has been worn down, but I don't (and I am sure you don't) want Dumars or Kuester racing any old war horses out of historical sentiment (like Atkins). I think a healthy Rip, who can play 5 or 10 minutes at the 3, combined with JJ and Daye, makes Tay tradable.

Of course Dumars won't trade him, because it's more important for the Ironman to get back up to 36 mpg, even if Kuester has to play him at PF (at the expense of Maxiell and Villanueva), so it's all moot.

I really like watching JJ play. Spring in his legs, and he's got some court sense. The scoring is all just icing on the cake.